The substitute for the lower life form is light occasional flake food for the swordtails. Also a large part iof there diet is algea and in order to keep the amazon swords alive I will need some decent lighting. So algea should be plentiful as for the baby swordtails I've tested very light feedings in tanks with a fair amount of algea vs regular feedings and on average 90 percent of babies survived on reg. Feedings and 45 percent on algea and light feedings. Mix in a swarm of cichlids and out of every clutch maybee 2 or 3 survive to sub adult very close to the same number in the wild. That's only in theory I've not tested how many would survive in that situation. That's why I want the tank. So I'm still curious if in all the MFK has anyone tried this or heard of someone trying it?
Just curious has anyone done this.
- Thread starter fish_n_vw
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You would need a LOT more prey. Remember that only 10% of the energy gets transferred from one trophic level to the next, therefore it takes a LOT of little food-animals to sustain one big jaguar cichlid, even if the jaguar isn't eating the little fishies and inverts.
So you suggest the 3 months of breeding from the approx. 60 swordtails before there are any preditors need be extended?
I did a little Reasearch last night. Seems there are some stocking modifications I would need to make. But the plan is for 2 species of livebearers and 6 species of smaller cichlids. What I put down was just a brief discription. But even still I am off on my stocking levels. Thanks for the heads up.
try some of the small aquatic inverts and insects. I think it will work. A friend has some guppies and a small cichlid and ghost shrimp, with a few other small fish that i dont remember, all in a 180g. the substrate is soil with a layer of rocks. he turns on the light for the plants and replaces evaporation. thats all!! it has been running for 3 years. completly balanced
Sound like a much smaller scale of what I want to do. I've done something a lot like that with 6 sword tails and a Archocentrus sajica in 90 and left it alone for severel months it seemed fine I lost a swordtail but a few babies had grown to a size just a few months from being able to breed. Its cool to hear someothers are trying this type of system too.
the only problem i see is that the fry would be eaten very quickly and not a great food source. but its a cool *** idea.
The fry of all the livebearers and the cichlids are to be the primary food source. I am definitely going to try to establish a invert habitat first. I have a lot of research yet to do. But I am thinking this is going to work if I have around 3 or 4 diffrent species of inverts that live primarily off algea and plants. I would get them established to a point of "habitat" exhaustion. Then add the other links to the "food chain" making numerous adjustments along the way. Once I start this I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to perfect it. But man what a good life.
